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The Mystery in the Attic | ||||||
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Category: SIYE Challenges new Characters:Harry/Ginny, Ron Weasley Genres: General, Humor, Romance Warnings: None Story is Complete Rating: PG-13 Reviews: 9 Summary: Harry is spending the summer at the Burrow after the tragic events at the Ministry in OotP. His late-night foray into the kitchen for a snack is interrupted by a sound from the attic. Is it the ghoul or is there something more mysterious at work? Written for the SIYE "Summer at the Burrow" challenge. Hitcount: Story Total: 9398; Chapter Total: 1554 Awards: View Trophy Room |
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Harry lay in bed for another hour until Mrs. Weasley came to check on him with a cold rag and a hot cup of tea. He was not nearly as adept at fooling others as Ginny apparently was, but he felt fairly confident that the Weasley matriarch hadn’t guessed from his responses that he’d been furiously trying to figure out what to do with his suddenly evident feelings for her daughter. Mrs. Weasley had advised him to drink his tea and then come downstairs if he felt well enough, and he agreed to do so. His mind reeled during lunch when Ginny plopped down into her seat across from him as if nothing had happened. It was as if she had already taken the potion; she bickered good-naturedly with Ron and talked with her mother about making a trip to Diagon Alley later that month. She skillfully ignored Harry, who kept looking over at her after every few bites. Without fail, she found something else to focus on whenever his eyes wandered her way. That afternoon, Ginny snuck away before the boys could ask her to play some quidditch with them. When Harry goaded Ron into asking his mum where she’d gone, they learned that she’d flooed over to Dean’s house for the afternoon and wouldn’t be home until after dinner. Ron was frustrated to only have Harry to test his keeping skills against, but Harry was out of sorts for reasons wholly unrelated to quidditch. Despite his attempts to reason his way out of it, there were definitely some feelings brewing inside of him. His initial arguments against those feelings couldn’t withstand cross-examination. Sure, she was Ron’s sister, but that didn’t give him a right to veto who could ask her out. She was technically dating Dean at the moment, but who was to say they’d be together forever? If she’d been strong enough to not act on her feelings for years, it wasn’t that big of an ask for him to wait until she was unattached before he tried talking to her. The nagging thought that she wanted to scrub herself of any feelings for him was the toughest for Harry to counter. Did she want to be rid of those feelings because she thought he would never return them, or could she see the dangers of being with him from afar and want to spare herself from the kind of pain that could bring? Maybe she just hated being conflicted about dating Dean and wanted to give her feelings for him a chance to grow. Questions raged inside of him as he and Ron got ready for bed. When Ron grumbled about Ginny being allowed to stay at her boyfriend’s house so late, Harry’s look of frustration probably looked like agreement, even though it was for much different reasons than Ron was espousing. As Harry brushed his teeth, he heard the roar of the floo and Mr. Weasley’s happy greeting for his daughter. Ginny’s voice was extra cheery, causing some of Harry’s resolve to wither. He’d nearly convinced himself to go talk to her tonight to suggest she forgo the potion out of a sense of never knowing what the future might have in store. But as her happy laughter echoed up the stairway, the selfishness of his plan felt all the more real. He couldn’t ask her to hold onto those feelings while she was with someone else. If Ginny was determined to scrub herself of any affection she felt for him, it wouldn’t be right to try to stop her. Instead, he trudged into Ron’s room forlornly. Other than Ron’s deep breathing and occasional snores, the only thing Harry could hear as he lay awake in his bed was the sound of the summer breeze rubbing a branch lightly against the Burrow’s roof. He turned over onto his side and futilely tried to will himself to sleep. By his watch’s reckoning, it was nearly midnight. Soon, Ginny would be downing the potion that would forever scrub her of any feelings for him. He tossed over again, punching his pillow a little harder than necessary in an attempt to make it comfortable enough to overcome his wakefulness. From out in the hallway, Harry heard the faintest creak of a board underfoot. If he hadn’t been listening so intently, he might have missed it. He mentally cursed his ears for betraying him by doing their job so well. There was nothing but silence that followed, but Harry’s heart was beating far too quickly now. He gave himself one last chance to mount an argument as to why it was more noble to stay in bed and give Ginny space, but found his mind fully dedicated to what he would say when he reached the attic. With a long sigh, he rose from his bed and began stealthily creeping up the stairs. Light from the attic illuminated the edges of the door as Harry approached it. He gulped involuntarily as he reached forward, lightly knocking twice before twisting the knob and swinging the door inwards. Ginny stood next to the cauldron, a small phial of the white potion clasped in one hand and a tiny hair clenched between her fingers in the other. She didn’t look particularly surprised to see Harry in the doorway. “Ginny!” he said much more loudly than he’d intended. Her eyes went wide as she shushed him and indicated he should close the door behind him. When he continued, his voice was much quieter. “I’m glad I caught you. I’ve been thinking about this whole thing all day and I don’t know if it’s such a good idea…” “What?!” she hissed back, staring in disbelief at him. “What do you mean?” “I dunno!” he shot back as the reasonable-sounding arguments he’d been going over in his head fled into the reaches of his brain he couldn’t access. “It just seems really drastic! I like us being friends and I don’t want to be nothing to you.” He cast about for reasons for her to not take the potion that didn’t give away the feelings he’d been fighting with all day. “Maybe I can just give you more space when you’re dating someone?” he suggested, grasping at straws. “That way you don’t have to deal with me being around all the time, but it wouldn’t close off any chance of something happening later. Who knows how we might feel in the future?” It was as if Ginny was trying to stare straight through his eyes and into his soul. His chest heaved as he tried to convey the importance of her decision with his gaze. In one swift movement, she brought the hair between her fingers into the phial, stoppered it with her thumb, and shook it vigorously. The liquid changed to maroon the instant the hair made contact. When Ginny saw that the potion was ready, she lifted it to her lips and drank the whole thing without hesitation. Disappointment swallowed Harry like a fifty-foot wave crashing over a sandcastle. His shoulders slumped down as he watched Ginny wipe her mouth with her sleeve. He waited for the change to come upon her. Harry wondered whether it would be visible on her face once every iota of care and affection for him was scrubbed from her by the potion. Would her laugh still sound almost musical? Would she no longer enjoy playing quidditch alongside him? Ginny shuddered as a shiver moved all the way up her body. Her long, red hair danced behind her before the tremor faded. A small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth as she looked back at Harry. “The potion worked,” she said with finality. “I’ve been scrubbed of any feelings I had for Dean.” Harry Potter blinked several times in quick succession, staring at Ginny without comprehending. “That’s probably for the best, though,” she added with a sly grin. “Since I broke up with him this evening, I’d rather not spend any time pining after him. Nice enough bloke, but just not who I had real feelings for, if you catch my drift.” His mind was reeling as she took a tentative step in his direction. She’d broken up with Dean? And then put Dean’s hair in the potion, not his own? His mouth was slightly slack as he attempted to assimilate everything that was happening, but his obstinate mind refused to put the pieces together. “After that big speech about being stealthy this morning, you didn’t honestly think I would accidentally step on a creaking stair tonight, did you?” She laughed at Harry, though not unkindly. It was more than a giggle yet less than a guffaw, and it conveyed a sense of confidence and excitement that Harry didn’t quite understand. Nonetheless, it buoyed his faltering spirits enough to coax him to step forward toward her. “You and Dean… Aren’t together?” asked Harry, wanting to make sure he wasn’t getting his wires crossed before allowing himself to hope. “Looks like it,” she replied, taking another two steps toward Harry. Her smile widened as she approached, looking more and more pleased with herself by the moment. He had taken two and a half more steps her way when he paused to ask, “And you’re sure that wasn’t my hair in the potion just now?” “Harry Potter, is your Gryffindor courage failing you?” she asked, a wickedly devious smirk overtaking her. “After all the kind things you said in Ron’s room and your attempt to talk me out of drinking the potion just now, you can’t think of a single way to test out whether I might still harbor any feelings for you?” She took an exaggerated step toward him and crossed her arms defiantly, arching an eyebrow at him in a challenge to his resolve. Before Harry realized that he’d decided to act, he found himself moving forward to catch her lips in his. Her hands snaked around him almost before he’d reached her, enthusiastically meeting his kiss with her own. He pulled her close against his chest as her hand found its way into the back of his hair. When they finally broke apart, Harry felt as though everything from the past few days had been obliviated right out of his head. He was holding Ginny in his arms, whose flushed features suddenly seemed even more attractive than usual. Any questions about the potion had been deleted from his brain; no matter how good Ginny might be at fooling people, Harry would eat his broomstick if it turned out she was feigning the attraction written across her face. Her hand slid from his shoulder down past his elbow until Harry found it tucked in his, their fingers interlacing as if they’d been holding hands like this for ages. Her other hand reached for the string to pull to turn off the attic light. She glanced over Harry’s shoulder and winked. Before the light was extinguished, Harry followed her gaze to the corner where the ghoul was curled up in his nest, a plate that had once contained a pile of leftovers empty in front of him. “Thanks for your help,” she whispered to it with a small laugh. “Promise to keep this whole ordeal under wraps until I figure out how to tell everyone that I’m with Harry?” The ghoul made a groan that Harry was almost sure didn’t express understanding before the light switched off, leaving him nothing but moonlight and the warm pressure in his hand to guide him back downstairs. |
| Reviews 9 |
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